Nureel
March 26, 2002
"Human Nature" has already completed the festival circuit and will start a theatrical release pattern on roughly 230 screens. This film has a modest budget considering the caliber of cast members: Tim Robbins ("The Shawshank Redemption", "The Player", and "Bull Durham"), Patricia Arquette ("Little Nicky" and "True Romance"), and Rosie Perez ("Riding in Cars with Boys" and "Do the Right Thing"). Any of these individuals could have bumped up the budget quite a bit, but they did not because of their respect for the filmmakers involved (Gondry, Kaufman, and Jonze). In fact, Patricia Arquette came on board before there was any financing in place. As with "Being John Malkovich", the script for "Human Nature" circulated for a while before it went into production; when Robbins read the script, he approached them. Although two of the leading cast members approached them, Rhys Ifans ("Shipping News" and "Notting Hill") and Miranda Otto ("What Lies Beneath" and "Love Serenade") both auditioned to get the parts that they both played brilliantly. Ifans had to transform from dignified to degenerate within seconds. Otto successfully captured an American accent and an American version of a French accent so convincingly that one would never guess that she is Australian. Most of the people involved with the production behind the camera are people who have worked with director Michel Gondry on various commercials and music videos. Spike Jonze stayed in the background to let Gondry "do his thing" since he views Gondry as a peer and has great respect for Gondry's work as a music video director. Jonze introduced writer Charlie Kaufman ("Being John Malkovich") to Gondry and then the project started to fly.
After graduating from NYU film school, but prior to working on features, the first being "Being John Malkovich", Kaufman worked on a few television sitcoms, including "Ned and Stacey" and "Get a Life". When asked what advice he would give to first time or young filmmakers, he replied:
I don't know. I don't really have any advice. I guess the only thing that made a difference in my professional life was getting an agent. It is really the only thing that I can say with any certainty that I could not get into the business for years, and then I got an agent and I was able to get my script sold. So other than that, I think you have to do what you believe in and be true to yourself.
Describe you experiences collaborating with Spike Jonze, since this
is your second time together?
I liked both of these guys (Spike
Jonze, director of "Being John Malkovich" and Michel Gondry, director of
"Human Nature"). I liked their work and I wanted to... I feel that, in
retrospect, that probably working with less experienced feature directors
is helpful in allowing me more voice in the process. If there were
somebody who had made 50 films, I would probably wouldn't have been
listened to as much. You know, and that worked out for me. Plus, they are
really talented guys, so it was good.
How involved were you in the production?
Well, I was
involved, I was never kicked off the set or anything... I was a producer
on "Human Nature", so I was one of the bosses actually. And, both Spike
and Michel value my opinion, so I was there on the set and I was there for
pre-production, and I was there for both movies. I was also involved in
post-production, editing, and casting... So I was there for all of it...
And I am doing another project with Spike ("Adaptation"). And I am going
to be doing another movie with Michel.
Were you involved at all with the financial aspects too, or just
creative?
More the creative; we worked with Good Machine [and they
did more of the financial management type of producer work]... I am not
all that interested in that either [financial aspects].
Would you tell me a little bit more about the inspiration for the
different characters? Do they evolve as your write, or do you come up with
their personalities beforehand and then put them in a story?
I
think that they... they evolve as I write; although I had an idea that I
wanted to write something about a naturalist and a feral man and a woman
covered with hair, and I didn't know what the story was and I didn't know
what the characters were, but those were the ideas, the concepts, and the
characters just kind of formed and the story just kind of came. But I
didn't set out with any kind of real idea of what I was going to do. I
don't like to work that way I prefer to sort of... explore things.
So you don't do an outline, you just write freely?
Yeah.
Well, I do go back and I change a lot and structure things. And if I come
up with something on page forty that needs to be addressed on page two,
then page two changes. So you know, I sort of go back and forth that way.
Do you write a complete draft and then make changes or do you make
changes along the way?
Sometimes I will go over the same ten pages
over and over again because I have no idea what to do next. So I just
start polishing and polishing because I have to do something. So there is
no rhyme nor reason to it; it is what it is, you know- whatever works at
the time.
You must be very pleased the reception that "Being John Malkovich"
received, despite the fact that the film was not mainstream. Especially
since it is difficult to predict how an audience will react to any given
film. Were you surprised by how well "Being John Malkovich" did? Do you
have any theories as to why?
Well, it ("Being John Malkovich")
exceeded all of our expectations, in that regard. I don't think we knew. I
think we... you know... The script had been around for a while and it had
received a lot of positive attention.
[It had been shopping around since 1995 and was not made into a feature until 1999, going into production in 1998.] So there were a few years of it looking like it wasn't going to get made.
Did you shop it around to a lot of different studios?
I
didn't do anything with it. I had an agent and they sent it out or not. It
got a lot of sort of- people wanted meet with me and talk with me about
other things, but no one wanted to make this film. So then we made the
movie and we started to do screenings of it for our friends and for
people, so we started to get a sense that there was going to be a positive
reaction. So it was sort of like it came creeping up: the reactions were
really positive, then we started to get really good reviews. So I guess
the point I am making is that by the time the audience reacted the way it
did, we figured that the movie was going to be well received... we just
got a feeling from talking to people afterwards. There were a couple of
preview review type of things.
So it wasn't a gut level feeling, you did do some informal
research?
Yeah, we had no way of really knowing.
So what do you think will make "Human Nature" a success?
I
don't know. I don't know if it will. I have no- I don't know. I get a
sense that people like it pretty well from what we've heard so far, but I
don't know if it is going to have the same kind of audience as
"Malkovich". I know that it is going to be compared to "Malkovich", which
is sort of unfortunate because it is a different movie and a different
director, but that seems to be what has been happening.
But that is kind of how marketing works.
Yeah, I know, but it is frustrating. But I don't know if it is going to
be successful. It did well at Sundance.
Describe your experience working with Michel Gondry.
Um, it
was good. He is a meticulous guy... He is a very talented guy [who has
worked on a number of commercials for Levi's and music videos for pop
artists who include: Bjork, Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, and Beck], an
ingenious kind of guy. He is very interested in character development and
trying to understand that about the movie, which I was appreciative of...
keeping close to the script, being respectful. So it was a good
experience. I would do it again.
Did Gondry's music video experience influence your decision to work
with him?
No. I knew Michel- I got introduced to Michel by Spike,
and like you [KA], I didn't know much about MTV like Spike did when I was
introduced to him because I am not in that world either. But I knew
Michel's work because of Spike and ... I was doing another project with
him, and he was waiting for me to finish writing that script, and he
wanted to direct something, and he read the script and he asked if he
could direct it. I said okay and that is sort of how it happened.
I really liked the fairy tale quality (fantastic visuals) was that
in the script or was that more the production design and
direction?
That's Michel. That's what Michel's work is like...
(bright colors, multi-layered visuals). He does a lot of work with rear
projection that also gives the movie a sense of artificiality... There was
a combination of sets with rear screen behind them and then actual
locations, so it goes back and forth. There are miniatures. You know, Lila
(character portrayed by Patricia Arquette) singing that song, she is not
actually walking, the background is moving, she is just walking in place
and the background is moving...There are double exposures when Puff
(character portrayed by Rhys Ifans) and Lila are having sex and there are
words that appear on the screen. And when they are swimming in the river,
they were just in a stationary pool, not moving at all, and the background
was moving... and the stuff behind them was a miniature... They also did a
miniature of Lila's cabin.
What are some of your hopes for this film?
I hope it does
well (laughs)... After it's done, there is nothing I can really do. You
just sort of move on, talk to the press and stuff, but... It would be nice
if people like it and don't demand their money back. (smiling)
(Source)